Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao
Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao
Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao

© Zhang Hongtu

Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao
Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao
Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao

Currently not on view

Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao,

1987

Zhang Hongtu 張宏圖, born 1943, Pingliang, China; active New York, NY
2019-394

Information

Title
Quaker Oats Mao, from the series Long Live Chairman Mao
Dates

1987

Maker
Zhang Hongtu 張宏圖
Medium
Acrylic on Quaker Oats oatmeal box
Dimensions
h. 24.1 × diam. 13.3 cm (9 1/2 × 5 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Mary Trumbull Adams Art Fund
Object Number
2019-394
Place Made

North America, United States, New York, New York

Description
Zhang Hontu grew up experiencing both the Civil War and Cultural Revolution in China before immigrating to New York in 1982. The Long Live Chairman Mao Series portrays the omni-present image of Mao Zedong that was embedded in Zhang’s memory since childhood is here transformed from the puritan farmer logo on a box of Quaker Oats. For Zhang Hongtu, even when you are not thinking of Mao, his apparition can appear. And once you start looking his image can be found everywhere. The resemblance between Chairman Mao and the logo humerously raises issues around concerns over the cult of personality, advertising, kitsch, propaganda, religion, and ideology.
Culture
Chinese, American
Type
mixed media
Materials
acrylic paint
Subject
faces

–2019 Asian American Arts Centre (New York, NY), by gift to the Princeton University Art Museum, 2019.

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